feeding survey

fullmonti

now is the time
I have a 180sps tank, & have been battling algae for some time. Have just about narrowed the problem down to me feeding fish to much. I was feeding 2-3 times a day, but small feeds they would eat every thing in a minute or less.

So was wondering what, how much, & how often others are feeding?
 
I have a 180 with some large tangs (6-8"), wrasse and a few others and a I feed 4 cubes of mysis a day and half a nori strip a day.
 
I had the same problem a while ago I am heavily feed 4 times a day. I fix the problem by

- Left my sump light on 24/7. It is CF light. So no heat problem. My cheato grow like crazy.
- Change water more often in the small amount. My total volume is around 180G. So I change 5 gallon every 3 days.
- Clean filter sock every 3 days.

I heard remote deep sand bed help but I have to try it yet.
 
Do you have an adequate amount of snails to eat that algae? Even in fishless tanks with very little nutrients, there is still enough N and P to grow algae. Are your N and P levels detectable? If so, what are they?

It might be that you just need more algae consumers.

I feed lots of flake, pellets, mysis, krill, nori and other meaty junk that the Asian market has when I go. I feed several times a day and enough so that the fish noticeably grow.
 
It's an odd combo of conditions. Phosphate & nitrate both at or near 0 for a long time now. At one time I added about 60 snails, most didn't make it, do have the two tangs & a blennie, urchin, hermits ect., macro algae doesn't hardly grow at all, but hair algae grew very well indeed. I never had cyano until I gave up & used algaefix to kill hair algae, where I couldn't scrub dead algae off cyano now grows.

When the algae was really bad I started using zeo reactor & dosing (heavily) zeo carbon source & zeobak, water was incredibly clear but algae still grew very well. After awhile my corals colors faded, pretty much stripped water of nutrients so much corals were starving. Thats when I took the reactor out & started feeding corals some zeo additives, & feeding my fish more. My corals look much much better now, but algae came back. Was told I probably stop using algaefix to soon. I have been doing the algaefix for about month now, each time I use it I scrub dead stuff off but it comes back almost over night. Not 100% sure this stuff is algae, it is very fine clear to grayish fuzz.

I have a large skimmer (Reeflo 250) socks, extra rocks in sump, even though phosphate test 0 I put in the bulk reef supply FGO&carbon reactor in couple weeks ago (did just have GFO & carbon in baffles of sump before) & have been keeping it all clean as possible & the crap just won't go! I have done every thing thats been suggested to get rid of the algae except feed fish less. Thats why I posted the feeding thread. From the replies so far sounds like I don't feed any more than you guys. So there it is, thoughts?
 
Can you take some pictures? Is it diatoms or dinoflagellates?

If it is algae, I would get some mexican turbos and let them go to work.

The chaeto probably didn't grow because the iron was low - this is common, unless you dosed iron. It seems like nusience algae will grow without much iron.
 
algae3.jpg


I usually don't let it get quite this bad

algae2.jpg


algae1.jpg


you can see a bit of the cyano on this one, the underside of some rocks where I can't get to it is much worse!

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this is what the hair algae looked like at its worst!
 
If you water is good. Does your bulb is old? It might be sediment on the rock that has phosphate. Next time you go to Atlanta look for sea hare. I saw them quite often. This is kind of temporary fix but it sure munching the hair algae.
 
bulbs are new, never have let them go more than 6 months.

I had a sea hair for awhile, till he went through the overflow teeth

I don't think this is a problem that can be eaten my way out of

I feel there is some thing out of balance, & desperately want to know what it is so I can fix it for good!
 
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